Matt Damon plays Ripley with such a complex mixture of awe, admiration, sexual desire, jealousy and frustration. These qualities humanize him and make him a very sympathetic "villain".
Jude Law is amazingly loathsome as Dickie Greenleaf, the rich trust fund brat. Ripley met his father in the states, and the patriarch offered him a lot of money to find Dickie in Italy and get him home. Ripley becomes enamored of Dickie and his lifestyle, and the sexual longing and tension, add an uneasy dimension to the drama. There is murder. There is identity theft. There are twists and turns of plot, all of which center on the taut Dickie/Ripley dyad.
Gwynyth Paltrow was terrific as Dickie's girlfriend, and the tense dynamics between the threesome were fascinating. Philip Seymour Hoffman stole the show with his icky, arrogant, meanness.
Great film.
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